


straw house, straw dog

by patrokla



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, Episode: s02e02 Vaulter, Episode: s02e03 Hunting, Gen, Missing Scene, Suicidal Ideation, roman roy 'kill kill kill' voice: angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27706418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: He loves his kids. He does love them. He knows how to fucking - demonstrate parental affection, like the family therapist he and Rava had gone to told him to. These are things that he’s capable of doing, and he used to be able to do them before. He’d taken pride in it. He’d wanted to be a father so badly. All of this is true.He doesn’t feel it anymore.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30





	straw house, straw dog

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Richard Siken poem of the same name, epigraphs from Siken's poem "Road Music." Inspiration for the fic comes from a cut take from "Hunting" that Jeremy Strong talked about [here.](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/fien-print/succession-safe-room-jeremy-strong-interview-1235677)
> 
>  **Warning** : the suicidal ideation tag is a very big part of this fic. The extended italics sequence has the worst of it, but the whole story revolves around feelings of powerlessness and despair, and possible ways out. Please read with caution. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @ leguin, where my succession blogging is a lot less fucking bleak (usually).

_The eye stretches to the horizon and then must continue up._   
_Anything past the horizon_   
_is invisible, it can only be imagined._

—

It’s so much easier to go through the motions. Follow Logan’s orders. Talk to this person. Threaten that person. Count out pills. He only has to think just as much as he can handle, only has to go as far as he can go. If he tries to do more, go further - his dad knows to stop him. He understands Kendall’s limits.

He could live like this, he thinks, safe behind the glass doors at Waystar Royco. Out of reach. Useful. It is a life, so it is living. 

If it feels like more than he deserves, that’s because it is. 

—

Of all of them, he seems to be the one most okay with his new position. Shiv and Roman sling barbs, Gerri and Karl look at him with occasional, pitying nausea, and Colin, Jess, and an endless series of motorcycle drivers put him where he’s meant to be and give him carefully measured press releases and vials of coke. 

Rava and the kids - he doesn’t - he’s busy, and Dad keeps him close at hand, and so he doesn’t have a chance to see them much. Not at all, really, until he finally picks up a call from Rava and she says _surely you didn’t forget Sophie’s birthday? Jesus fuck, Kendall. The bar is buried underground, I - she’s your daughter. Fix this._

He fixes it. He asks Logan to shut down a park, and he tells Jess to bring in whatever Sophie wants. He fumbles over her favorite birthday cake flavor for twenty minutes before he finally fucking remembers it, calls Rava with a date and time and tells her it’s fixed. He feels like he owes her an apology. He can’t bring himself to actually give one.

He’s doing as much as he can, being as handy and capable as he’s functional of being, and it’s working alright, okay, it’s more than he deserves. He believes all of that most of the time, and he could believe it forever except - he’s got kids. He’s supposed to be a dad. Sophie throws her arms around him, and he doesn’t feel -

He loves his kids. He does love them. He knows how to fucking - demonstrate parental affection, like the family therapist he and Rava had gone to told him to. These are things that he’s capable of doing, and he used to be able to do them before. He’d taken pride in it. He’d wanted to be a father so badly. All of this is true.

He doesn’t feel it anymore. 

—

Logan asks him to gut Vaulter with a rusty spoon. Reminds him that he doesn’t know better, can’t know better than anybody else - not even fucking Roman, and maybe it’s true. He slits Vaulter’s throat neatly and efficiently, and doesn’t mind the arterial spray. _I can do this_ , he thinks, _I can do_ this _, and I can’t do_ that _. Dad knows my limits._

But he’s off-kilter now. He’d managed to find a little equilibrium, before. Fit himself into the place Dad carved out for him with gratitude. Now it’s not enough and too much all at once. He's spiraling. Taking risks. Starts locking eyes with the cashier as he palms a pack of gum at the corner store. Gets more fucking park coke from Greg. He doesn’t want Rava back, doesn’t even want to think about Rava, because that means thinking about the kids, so he throws parties and looks for women who will make him feel something. 

None of it works. He’s starting to feel like the walls are closing in. He’s not sleeping, partly out of insomnia and partly because when he closes his eyes for more than a moment he feels the steering wheel jerk under his hands and sees the surface of the river, unmoved after swallowing a car whole. The physical sensations that had been eclipsed by his panic and horror take over his dreams. His lungs burn, his wrist bleeds, water rushes through his ears and he hears a voice pleading. Sometimes it’s the boy’s. Sometimes it’s Iverson or Roman. Sometimes it’s his own voice. Screaming, choking on water, begging. _Help, please! Please! I’m alive in here, please, someone help!_

—

In Hungary, after figuring out Roman’s plans and shooting some boar, he goes out walking by himself. 

It’s the kind of thing Logan rarely allows him to do outside of the offices of Waystar Royco, where his long walks to the balcony and occasional bathroom interlude go unremarked on, but he figures there’s so much going on that for once he can totally slip through the cracks, if he wants.

So he does. 

Close to the house, the forest is carefully curated. Just a few acres of heavily-maintained wilderness meant for people like the Roys, who are so rich that this type of managed convenience becomes less an insulting suggestion that they lack the skill to properly hunt, and more a simple expression of what they’re owed by virtue of being so disgustingly wealthy. 

Stewy had said something like that once, when they were in teenagers. It was a hypocritical sentiment given Stewy’s elephantine trust fund, but, Kendall thought, a true one. It didn’t used to bother him, that kind of management, but then he didn’t used to be the prodigal son, either, there only by his dad’s grace and fucking tolerance for Kendall’s endless betrayals and fuck-ups. He used to be something, somebody who deserved all of this.

It grates on him now. He walks fast, rifle slung over his shoulder, until he can no longer see the vast lawn surrounding the house when he looks back, and then he walks some more. The sky begins to darken. He could get lost out here, might already be, but it’s the same kind of lost he’s been his whole life - always findable by his Dad. Never really off the map.

The rifle gently hits his shoulder-blade with every step he takes, a solid, comforting weight. He’s not sure why he brought it. 

That’s a lie. He knows. 

What is true is that he hadn’t really had a plan when he set off, but by the time he’s reached what feels like the very center of the forest, the place where the air feels thick and old, he’s got an idea.

It’s not the kind of idea you can look at directly. He has to sell it to himself one step at a time. Pad it with all sorts of sweeteners like he’s talking up a gunshy investor.

_Let’s sit down against that tree. Your feet are starting to get tired, and your back is gonna kill you if you don’t put the rifle down for a second._

_Good. Might as well take a look at the rifle, it’s the only thing out here besides trees and all these tree-related things. Leaves, branches. Dirt. The rifle is interesting. Heavy, expensive. The weight of it in your hands feels good, doesn’t it? It sounds like a cliche, but it’s true: carrying a gun makes you feel more powerful._

_You haven’t had a lot of power lately, have you? Maybe that’s for the best. You don’t do well with power. Don’t really have the capacity to wield it like Dad does. Sorry if I hit a nerve there, Ken, but it’s just the truth. You don’t do well with the big decisions._

_Maybe you just need practice. Dad might be making a mistake, keeping you on such a short leash. How will you ever get better if he doesn’t give you any learning opportunities? It’s not like you’ve never made a good move before. You just made a lot of bad ones, too. Ran into some bad luck. Hit a lot of speed bumps, didn’t you?_

_You could practice now, if you wanted. Nobody's here to judge you while you do it. Point the gun at that squirrel over there. Look through the sight. You could shoot if you wanted to - wait. Too slow, it’s gone now. No other squirrels in sight, it seems. Nothing else to shoot._

_Well. There’s one thing._

_Oh, come on. Don’t act like you don’t want to do this. At the very least, you’re curious about what it would be like. I’m just giving you an opportunity. A chance to live out your dreams. A chance to get out._

_Because soon enough you’re gonna be out, one way or another, Kendall. When Dad dies, you’re done. If he changes his mind? You’re done. Do you really want someone else to make that choice for you? Throw you away like that?_

_No? That’s what I thought. Just give it a try. A shot, if you’ll pardon the pun. That’s right. This is where you wanted to be the whole time, you fucking waste of space. You know it, I know it, we all know it. When they send in a search team, nobody is going to be surprised to find your body. They’ll probably be relieved that it happened here. No photos, no witnesses. It’ll have to be a closed casket funeral, but that’s not something anybody cares about. It’s just a fact._

_And now you’re crying. Of course. Well, it’s natural to be scared of a big move like this. Means you’re a pussy, but you already knew that. It’d be nice if you could be bold like Dad, but you don’t have to be. You just have to get the job done. You’re not auditioning for a part here, Ken, you’re packing up your things. Time to go. The safety is off. The gun is in your mouth. It tastes fucking disgusting by the way, and it hurts, doesn’t it, all that metal stretching your mouth wide. World’s worst blowjob over here. Just finish it._

_Come on. Do it.  
_

_Fucking coward._

—

He leaves the rifle in the forest. It’s kind of an obvious tell, but then maybe he’s hoping someone will notice, will ask questions. Also, he’s tired, and he doesn’t want to haul the fucking thing back with him, banging into his shoulder all the way. 

He’s angry at himself and the way he keeps wanting things. If he could shut it all down, he would. Maybe he will. For now, it’s bad enough that the ball is already in motion. He can’t un-realize that the current situation is untenable. He runs through old phrases as he strides back towards the house: the center cannot hold, something’s gotta give, be adaptable, be flexible, meet the moment. Motivational shit.

None of it is enough to drown out the part of him that had leaned back against that tree, opened his mouth, tasted the gun, and thought _please, please, please_. 

—

_Sure, it's good to feel things, and if it hurts, we're doing it_   
_to ourselves, or so the saying goes._


End file.
